Updates

Youth Project:

03.02.10 Update - Trash Management

At the end of the health classes in 2009, fourteen youth held a community meeting and decided to take on the trash problems in their community. After consideration and communication with community members, the youth have devised a project plan to collect and remove trash to the nearest landfill. This project will take place between June-December of 2010, with support from two new volunteers.

08.16.10 Update - New Project Focus

The volunteers have had over a month since they arrived in San Francisco, Peru. They have slowly built a relationship with the youth, and have discussed the previously chosen trash project with the community. Ultimately, the communitie's motivation for desiring a project dedicated at reducing the environmental impact of trash in their village, was to receive a local landfill. The volunteers, as well as MEJOR Communities as an organization, were concerned that a landfill- focused project did not align well with the youth's original idea of keeping the community clean, nor provide the community with the education-based project that would result in a lasting impact on the environmental ramifications of garbage.

To ensure the integrity of the trash project, the community held a meeting in which the true focus of the trash project, as an educational effort at reducing the amount of trash being produced and poorly disposed of, was clearly described. The community, seeing that these ideas about trash management would not result in their desired landfill, they unanimously decided that they would prefer to focus on improving their health through building improved stoves instead. This had been a close second choice the previous year. We have decided to retain the educational pieces of the trash project as a part of the volunteer responsibilities in the Third Goal, however, as trash management is still an important issue, especially since the community still hopes to search out a new source to fulfill their landfill dreams. We believe it is important to arm them with as much information as we can so that they can at least make educated decisions regarding this issue as they move forward.

Thus, a new project focus for the youth has been chosen. As a result our current budget is being reworked, which will depend on several factors, such as the number of families hoping to receive a kitchen, how much each family will be able to put towards the costs and materials, as well as the kitchen design to be used. The volunteers are also still in the process of solidifying which of last year's youth are committed to this project. The youth have so far been much more animated about the educational videos they are planning to film, however there are five youth of the remaining eleven, who have shown the most interest in being leaders of the kitchen project. Youth are hard to pin down because their involvement depends a lot on the support of their families, household chores, planting and harvesting seasons, and weather. Plus youth are often occupied by other personal issues as they discover what is important to them. Ultimately, however, as the youth are leaders of the project, there is no project without their involvement.